I had asked the above question (copy posted below)  in Nature Newsblog: “In the Field”, with the title: ‘Cosmic Ripples Net Physics Prize’ at:  http://blogs.nature.com/news/blog/2006/10/cosmic_ripples_net_physics_pri.html

Nature Newsblog published this comment on December 21, 2006; after the discovery of the “Face of God” by the COBE Project; but so far I failed to get a satisfactory answer from any quarter. The approaching yearly rituals of Nobel Awards prompted me to pose this question again in RG, with the hope that some fresh views and opinion will pacify my curiosity.

Physics as a part of traditional metaphysics deals with the some of the most fundamental questions of objective reality and the ontological questions of the nature of space and time, cosmology, origin of everything and the universe itself. Nobel Awards in physics not only provide authentic recognition of important discoveries on these issues, but also by default sets the course, direction and the culture for future enquiries that impact on the ideological nature of physics itself.

However; since the theories of relativity and the reformulation of objective reality by Minkowski/Einstein  as an abstract “continuous spacetime field” structure with tangible physical/mechanical attributes; metaphysics has been totally purged from this realm; replacing it with idealized mathematics of insurmountable complexities that only the most “brilliant minds” with mathematical prowess can master and deal with. Big-name theoretical physicists routinely disparage and ridicule the uninitiated philosophy and metaphysics in this realm.

But the replacement of metaphysics with mathematical idealism seems to have the curious effect that physics increasingly is coming closer to good old theology! The “Face of God”, “God Particle”, the “Finger of God”, the “Mind of God” etc., are common vocabularies in the lips of the physicists. With the exception of last year, Nobel Awards in physics during the past decade seems to have been dominated by issues related to Minkowski-Einstein paradigm of objective reality:

COSMIC RIPPLES NET PHYSICS PRIZE:

 Nobel Prize for Big Bang Theory Raises Big Questions. Is Nobel Prize in Physics Losing Some of Its Nobleness?

The recent award in support of the Big bang theory seems to be a notable point of departure for Nobel awards in Natural Sciences. While Nobel awards for World Peace, Economics and even Literature can be construed to be based on subjective (ideological, politico-economical etc.) considerations of “Western” interest, awards for Natural sciences always remained beyond any trace of controversy.

Cynics, for example can point out that, during the past few decades at least, Nobel World Peace prize was awarded for ideological consideration against the “Evil Soviet Empire” [Andrei Sakharov – 1975, Lech Walesa – 1983, Mikhail S. Gorbachev – 1990] and for politico-economic interest in the case of the Middle East [Menachem Begin and Anwar el-Sadat -1978, Yasir Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin – 1994, Shirin Ebadi – 2004]. Even the aptly deserving World Peace award to Jimmy Carter – 2002 was in general perceived to be a reaction against recent American policies in the Middle East.

Nobel awards in Natural sciences on the contrary always merited almost universal consensus, especially from those working in the field. These awards were always characterized by strict adherence to objectivity, the importance of the discovery and an uncompromising demand for verifiable experimental results. Albert Einstein was awarded Nobel Prize for his work on photoelectric effect, but not for his theories of Special and General Relativity, even though these two theories dominated the practice of Natural science for the last 100 years. Another notable example is the idea of “Black Hole”, even though vigorous claims about its existence are being made for a long time. The Theory of General Relativity (GR) still remains a field of vigorously active research and a major preoccupation of modern physics; astrophysics and cosmology; where increasingly tenuous attempts are being made to prove GR with even better accuracy – a passion apparently guided by a lingering doubt about its validity and the necessity to support related theories such as Big bang by proxy.

Both GR and the Big bang theory that has its scientific root in the former were dogged with controversy and scepticism from the moment they were proposed. It is a historical fact that Arthur Eddington over-enthusiastically claimed to have proven GR based on partial results of his experiments on the bending of star light by the gravity of the Sun. Calculations based on the complete data recorded by his team did not support the initial claim by Eddington. Although later experiments by other researchers verified the bending of star light by the Sun, this episode set a bad precedent which prompted Stephan Hawking to observe, “a case of knowing the result they wanted to get, not an uncommon occurrence in science”.(“A Brief History of Time”, Bantam Books, p-32, (1988)). Einstein’s initial insertion of a fudge factor (for a static universe) in his equation and later claim (after Hubble’s discovery of an expanding universe) that it was the “biggest blunder of his life” was also unhelpful. All the sophisticated and difficult experiments (including COBE) done later on were perceived by many to be contrived and seemed to have been carried out in response to new requirements to keep the theories alive.

COBE based study of the microwave background radiation is the most sophisticated experiment ever done on this subject. This required expensive and elaborate logistical, technical, data processing etc. expertise and instruments that had to work at the very limit of their technical abilities. A study of this nature can only be carried out by a resourceful government supported agency like NASA. A repetition of any aspect of this study seems unlikely in the near future and remains outside the ability of any other group of scientists. Although GR commands total loyalty from most established and mainstream physicists, this is not the case with Big bang theory. Opposition to the officially accepted Big bang theory was voiced on empirical and epistemological grounds by a significant fraction of astrophysicists and cosmologists since 1950s and it is still growing. Ambartsumian, Arp, Alfven, Hoyle, Narlikar, Burbidge pair, Phipps are only few names among many who strongly contested the Big bang theory. Evidence for quasar-galaxy association, shell like structure of galaxies and their clusters, quantization in the physical distribution and in the redshifts of the galaxies, existence of heavy metals like iron in the intergalactic space and the quasars which are supposed to contain only primordial gas, the very high redshifts of the quasars that require much faster than light non-relativistic velocities, their unrealistic luminosity and proper motions at such enormous distances (in the Big bang scheme), observation of galaxies at 17 billion light years away – far beyond the limit predicted by the Big bang theory etc., are at odd with its paradigm.

Astronomer and astrophysicist Halton Arp, one of the most famous opponents of the Big bang theory has this to say in a personal communication in reference to the present Nobel Award, “The intergalactic medium has to have some temperature. Eddington calculated about 2.7 deg. in 1926. In the 1940’s Max Born calculated 2.7 deg. on the basis of tired light. Gamow calculated 50 deg. before Pezias and Wilson measured 2.73 deg. But a Canadian astronomer, McKellar had already measured it from the excitation of the inter-stellar CN molecule. The ultimate irony is that it is a primary reference frame which violates Einstein’s assumption about no preferred reference frames.” - And on George Smoot’s work on the small variation in the temperature of the microwave background radiation, “Eric Lerner in his latest summary describes how, that “face of God” (a remark made by Smoot after his discovery – AM) is now falling apart. The predictions stepped down a number of times before any irregularities finally showed up at 10^-5.”

The claims of the Big bang theory at best are being contested and at worst are uncertain. The Nobel Award of this nature seems to be an exception to the tradition. According to the Nobel citation, the Big bang “is the only scenario that predicts the kind of cosmic microwave background radiation measured by COBE”. Even though Per Carlson, chairman of the Nobel physics committee said according to press reports that “they have not proven the Big bang theory, but they give it very strong support”; this award represents a very strong endorsement of the Big bang theory and very likely will further stifle healthy scientific debate on this issue. This endorsement adds to the one already given by the Vatican.

Posted by: Abdul Malek | December 21, 2006 11:58 PM

http://blogs.nature.com/news/blog/2006/10/cosmic_ripples_net_physics_pri.html